NRIPRIEST:


The flogging technique as a way of instilling discipline was a norm in that school and it was unsettling for me. They said the kids deserved it because they were stubborn, noisy and disrespectful. The funny thing though was that these teachers entered the classroom with all sorts and sizes of canes but the class was never quiet. They didn't mind being flogged, they had been flogged so much in their lifetime it was nothing to them. Imagine a woman who has had to bear ten children, will pain of childbirth and labour still be news to her? Before any teacher leaves their classroom, they would have flogged half of the pupils and they would still be screaming at the top of their voices.

OmoAjowa7:
So Nri-Bogie what do you want us to do about this?

You want chicken?

On a lighter note, they need to scrap this NYSC junk.Obviously, the tone of the garbage up there makes it clear she's not so cool with Yorubas which is no biggie to me since I myself would have rejected serving in the east.

Why transfer me to a place where I don't like the people from there ?

9jacrip:


You saw through the shenanigan too.

OmoAjowa7:

HopeAtHand:
9jacrip, omoajowa7...the Igbos dont like you, you too do not like them. What the hell we doing in same country. The sensible thing is to split. Please join the crusade to split the country.

OmoAjowa7:



God bless you!

9jacrip:


Years ago, I was posted to Abia.

I did the three weeks camp and I was posted to Umuahia South LG @ Apumiri/Ubakala.

Like most Yoruba did, I redeployed to the SWest because the Umuahia sh!thole and it had me like:

NRIPRIEST:
It's Thursday! Throw back Thursday!! I'm having a little hangover from yesterday's excitement but I'm good! I'm chewing on some veggie chips and shrimp crackers, my saviours. Today I noticed that seeing naked mannequins make me uncomfortable, I just want to run to them, clothes in hand. Why are they all white in Nigeria, those mannequins? Someone on my Facebook said they use bleaching cream and I found the answer hilarious!

Photo belongs to the internet, not me.

Oh well, you remember I served at a secondary school in Abeokuta back in 2012 and it was quite interesting. It was interesting because I observed a lot being around those kids. For instance, I found that most Yoruba parents report their kids to teachers concerning issues that took place at home and demand they get punished for it in school. I just didn't understand why a kid would disobey their parents at home and then they wait till the next day to tell their teacher so they get flogged. I found that half the whipping these kids got where for offences committed at home which the teachers obviously did not witness. This act I did not find funny in any way.

The flogging technique as a way of instilling discipline was a norm in that school and it was unsettling for me. They said the kids deserved it because they were stubborn, noisy and disrespectful. The funny thing though was that these teachers entered the classroom with all sorts and sizes of canes but the class was never quiet. They didn't mind being flogged, they had been flogged so much in their lifetime it was nothing to them. Imagine a woman who has had to bear ten children, will pain of childbirth and labour still be news to her? Before any teacher leaves their classroom, they would have flogged half of the pupils and they would still be screaming at the top of their voices.

I also noticed that the teachers taught them everything in Yoruba, including English Language. I found it funny at first and then after sometime, it became annoying. I asked the teachers I was friendly with at the staffroom and they would say things within the lines of "they are not smart ni, what can one do? if you like speak English from morning till night, they will not understand what you're saying. Only few of them understand, will you now speak English for the sake of one or two persons when they can all understand Yoruba?" I am all for learning your local language but this was just extreme! Wont they write WAEC? Wont they go out into the world? Anyway, back to the flogging wahala.

My case was very different. I was taking Jss3 students Literature in English and during my first class with them, my supervisor came with me, naturally dragging along with him all kinds of canes so he was in charge. The second day, I went alone. I asked for a chair and I sat down because standing for too long wasn't my calling. I sat down and I told them I didn't know a single word in Yoruba so they would be wasting their time if they were thinking I was going to communicate in their language. I told them I was allergic to unnecessary sound so noisemaking in my class was not an option. I explained to them that noise generates heat and since they didn't have fans in their classroom, I wasn't prepared to sweat at all. Then last but not least, I told them how I hated to waste my energy, and that I considered flogging a total waste of energy. I told them that anyone who gave me reason to consider borrowing a cane will never step foot in my classroom again. While I delivered this oscar deserving speech, you could hear a pin drop, as in muo nso gafee.

I finished and they all sat up while I wrote down the definition of Literature on the board. From that day onwards, it was the same. They would come and call me thirty minutes before time and my class became interesting! Everyone noticed the change in Jss3E, I had a personal relationship with my kids. Sometimes, the teachers would say things like "where's corper Doris, please go to SS2, they're making noise there"

After a while, my kids started respecting other teachers as well by not making noise when they were around. I told them no one should flog any of them without my permission. The day I told them that, you would have thought that someone won a lottery with their level of excitement. I didn't want anyone flogging my kids because some parent or guardian came to report one silly issue.

The teachers said Jss3E people where now untouchable, they joked about it. They tried to move me to another class but my kids wouldn't have it, I wouldn't have it either. The teachers said it was good so that other classes could enjoy small. Enjoy what? I thought. If you people took your jobs a little seriously, these kids will be fine.

I set the mid-term test and they failed woefully. I complained about it at the staffroom and a teacher said this to me- see, not everybody will be successful in life. If everyone becomes successful, who will be my house-help? Who will be my driver? These children are not serious, leave them jare. I called some of the students who did well and assigned the other ones to them, I thought if their mates taught them, they just might understand better.

I was preparing my lesson notes one day in an empty classroom when a girl from my class came to tell me that a teacher was about caning one of my students because her father came to report her. She said they did as I instructed by asking the teacher to get my permission but he didn't listen. I got up and walked to the staffroom but by the time I got there, she was already being flogged. The teacher repeatedly asked her to kneel in front of him while he flogged her because she kept moving away out of fear. I got there and stopped him, asking why she was being flogged. The teacher told me her father said she was very stubborn at home and didn't sleep in the house the previous day. He said he had been asking her where she spent the night but she had disrespectfully refused to answer. "Where you in their house yesterday?" I asked the teacher. "Where you there when it happened? Why do you think it is your job to discipline her for something you didn't witness? An offence she committed at home" The teacher ignored me and kept asking her to kneel down close to him.

I went and stood in front of my student and the teacher kept saying it wasn't my business. I told him it was as much my business as it was his. The staffroom became heated and noisy, they were speaking Yoruba and I couldn't get anything out of the man because he obviously didn't know any English. Amidst the argument and noise and tension, my student said something in Yoruba but no one heard. One of my bright students was there too watching the goings on when I asked the girl to repeat herself, she did but i didn't understand her. The bright student interpreted what she said to me in English and I fell in a chair close to me. The other teachers stopped to ask why I reacted like that but I couldn't speak. "Funmi, tell them what you just said." She said it again and there was absolute silence. Funmi said her father forces her to have sex with him all the time, thats why she runs away from the house.

One of the female teachers ran to the man and started hitting him, slapping and shoving him. He just stood there, emotionless. What audacity, I thought. He raped this girl on a daily basis and had the guts to report her in school for not coming home the previous day? I just sat there, staring at Funmi whose head was bowed the entire time. The man was pushed out of the school compound. I asked if they weren't going to report him to the police, "which police? so that they can start asking for money abi? And then his partners in crime will go and bail him abi?" My heart was crushed.

Funmi's Agric teacher took her home that day and the next day, the teachers analysed the issue at the staffroom, they all agreed that it was either Funmi wasn't the man's biological daughter or he was doing some form of juju that required him to sleep with his daughter to function. I was so sad for Funmi and I imagined what it must have been like, being raped over and over again by your own father. I was angry because this man went scot-free.

The flogging in my school reduced drastically. The teacher who flogged Funmi that day couldn't look me in the face, he was so ashamed of himself and I wanted him to feel more guilt and shame, I wished there was something I could do to make him feel twice the shame he was already feeling. I thought of all the other students and what they must be hiding behind those eager faces, I wondered what their stories were. What hurt me most, was the nonchalance on the part of the teachers, how normal and ordinary it seemed to them.

OPCNAIRALAND:
The moral of the story is the pupils were behaving bad and Yoruba parents and teachers had no clue how to fix the problem till this Ada of Iboland got on the scene. She fixed all their problems!